The present invention relates to a wound contraction inhibitor for treating scar after the burn, hypertrophic scar, and keloid.
Skin tissues of such as the scar after a burn, the hypertrophic scar, and the keloid, lack cells and blood vessels, and are abundant with fibrous interstitial tissues, which are produced densely and irregularly, in the process for repairing the damaged tissues. Therefore, such damaged tissues are hard and have a light color. In addition, the damaged tissues tend to degrade their functionality and cause wound contraction.
It has been considered that these scars are caused by abnormal activity of the fibroblasts due to such things as infectious diseases, inflammations, and diathesis, and by resultant excessive production of collagen fibers in the process for the wound healing. However, the basic critical causes and mechanisms of the scars have not sufficiently been proved.
At present, either the surgical therapy after crisis (the secondary redressement) or the conservative treatment using medicine is mainly performed for these treatments. In the conservative treatment, tranilast, which is antiallergic drug, heparin ointment, steroids, and the like are used. These medicines suppress the infectious diseases and the inflammations, thereby inhibiting the wound contraction. Also, it has been observed that cytokine, such as interferon γ and interleukin-1, strongly inhibited wound contraction of the skin tissue in vitro. These are presently in the clinical trial.
However, in the conventional surgical therapy, there have been many cases in which recurrence happened and the complete recovery was not achieved. That is, not enough therapeutic effect was achieved. In addition, when the complete recovery was not achieved in the surgical therapy, it was required to simultaneously perform the mechanical oppression therapy or conservative therapy. Although the conventional conservative therapy showed the effect of inhibition as to the wound contraction of the skin tissues, there were many cases in which complete recovery was not achieved. That is, the conventional conservative therapy also does not achieve decisive results.